Darwin's Bastards Astounding Tales From Tomorrow Selected and edited by Zsuzsi Gartner Douglas & McIntyre: 456 pp., $21.95 Reading Zsuzsi Gartner's introduction to "Darwin's Bastards: Astounding Tales From Tomorrow," you might get the idea that the future's gotten old. It's been a while, after all, since Y2K turned out to be a bust, and even longer since William Gibson invented cyberspace. Given Gartner's tone of 1990s-style millennial anxiety — her concerns include "[g]

Trying to put a yearlong series of internal disputes behind it, the NAACP on Saturday ousted William F. Gibson, the strong-willed chairman who has led the civil rights organization since 1985, and chose Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, as his replacement. "It is time to heal our wounds," Evers-Williams said in an emotional victory speech shortly after the NAACP board of directors elected her by a 30-29 vote. "We will move forward because we are family."

We speak of military culture, as we do of military justice or music, only warily. Neither warfare's brute force nor its daunting precision seems to qualify it for such elevation. Yet we as a nation are fascinated by it. For one thing, America is good at making war--methodically, reassuringly (or for some, frighteningly) good at it. Newsweek correspondent Douglas Waller is among the reassured. He has written an up-to-date, strikingly well-informed recent history of the nation's increasingly essential "secret soldiers," its commandos.

September 12, 1993 | Jonathan Littman, Jonathan Littman is the author of "Once Upon a Time in Computerland." Cyberpunks can reach him on the Internet at jlittman@well.sf.ca.us

Today is the day!" squealed disc jockey Rick Dees. "This is song number one, 'Escapade,' by Janet Jackson. If it is followed by 'Love Shack' by the B-52's and 'Kiss' by Prince, you could be caller number 102 and win a brand new $50,000 Porsche!" KIIS-FM called it "Win a Porsche by Friday": eight Porsches--about $400,000 worth of steel, leather and status--given away, one a week. You could hardly live or work in Los Angeles without being caught up in the frenzy.

The closing performance of "The Miracle Worker," William Gibson's drama based on Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan, will be signed for the hearing-impaired at Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga on Sunday at 1 p.m. Reservations: (310) 455-3723.

This fall, hunters have killed more than 193 wolves in Montana and Idaho, and the slaughter is not finished. The Idaho season has been extended to March 31 to allow hunters to reach the quota of 220 wolves approved for killing in the state by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The limit exists because wolves in the area were only recently removed from the endangered species list. In Alaska, where wolves are more plentiful and there is no such quota, hunters in airplanes have killed more than 1,000 wolves in recent years.

Roma Downey, the star of "Touched by an Angel," is producing and starring in an adaptation of William Gibson's play "Monday After the Miracle" for CBS. It's a sequel to "The Miracle Worker," about Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. Downey will portray Sullivan, while Moira Kelly will play Keller as a 20-year-old college student. Christina Pickles and Billy Campbell also star. The film will be broadcast next season.

Cyberpunks and oceanic buffs will have a field day at Chapman University on Tuesday, when the school hosts two distinguished authors. Oceanographer Charles Hollister, noted for his spirited debates with audiences, will give a free talk on "The Wise Use of Oceans, the Nuclear Legacy of the Cold War" at 7 p.m. in the Irvine Lecture Hall. Information: (714) 997-6831. In Chapman Auditorium, William Gibson, the noted cyberpunk author of "Neuromancer," will speak at 8 p.m.

The Reagan Administration had no comment on a published report that it was close to deciding to nominate a Texas bank official to a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve Board. The New York Times, quoting unnamed White House sources, reported that President Reagan was expected to nominate William Gibson, senior vice president at Republicbank Corp. of Dallas, to the central bank to replace Preston Martin. Martin, the board's vice chairman, resigned last month.